Words for These

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels… – 1 Corinthians 13:1

There should be a word for what we were.

and maybe another for what we became.

And I suppose there would have to be one

to describe the becoming and, of course,

our unbecoming. Maybe two to be safe.

There were words we used every day,

we might call them “everyday words,”

but they were clearly the wrong words

or if not wrong per se then insufficient

or inadequate but they were all we had.

What does big mean or long or broad?

Well, it depends. Everything is relative.

Honestly, language does us no favours.

Meaning should be renamed gistness

or fluxness because isness is fleeting.

Pleasure is not happiness even if

happiness is frequently pleasurable

And that is the problem, imprecision.

There are no joyometers or scales to

measure the depths of our emotions.

When God confused the languages

people always took that to mean

he created many different tongues.

What he did was more insidious:

he literally confused language.

Not one single word can be trusted.

In any language.

Except maybe the tongues of angels.

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Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct—and a few non-defunct—literary magazines and websites. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and, whenever the mood takes him, next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels: Jim, not the cat.